


What Lies in the Void

by ArSommers



Series: Beyond Nocturne [4]
Category: Alien Series, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Star Wars Old Republic - Freeform, Xenomorph - Freeform, fanfic of a fanfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29477493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArSommers/pseuds/ArSommers
Summary: The Nocturne crew face off against something that is not of their galaxy.  One-shot.
Series: Beyond Nocturne [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2100546





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [SWTOR: Nocturne](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20198818) by [SWTORAscension](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SWTORAscension/pseuds/SWTORAscension). 



You didn’t need to be a Jedi to sense the tension that filled Nocturne. Whether it was through the occasional worried whispers or the look of uneasiness when the crewmates met each other’s eyes, those aboard the ship were constantly reminded when they were in each other’s presence that they were flying through the Unknown Regions.  
Some took this experience better than others, but the fact remained that they were very deep in uncharted territory, where anything could potentially happen. The subjugator-class ship wouldn’t have gone out that far under normal circumstances, but intelligence suggested that a high-end smuggling operation would be going down, and what better ship to send on the journey through space than one that appeared outwardly Imperial, yet was Republic at heart?  
Jedi Master Loke Sanna had all but let out a sigh of relief when they caught the smugglers with their goods in hand and waiting for the recipient. “The hardest part’s over,” she thought. “The sooner we get back into charted territory, the better,”  
And yet, something buzzed dully in the back of the Jedi’s mind, as if reminding her the mission wasn’t over yet. Loke made note of this small intrusion as she entered the interrogation room, but she refused to let it cloud her senses.  
“I must admit,” Loke said as she took a seat across from one of the smugglers, “I expected there to be more of you,”  
“We’re just the middle men,” the human smuggler said. “We don’t know nothing,”  
Loke suspected the man was being somewhat truthful. Based on the little she was able to gather on the three they apprehended, they appeared to be the go-betweens between the vendor and buyer, nobody high ranking yet respected enough to transport something from point A to point B. Still, that didn’t mean they couldn’t provide at least some insight into the larger operation at hand.  
“You must have been told something if you were transporting goods,” Loke pressed. “Like where the drop off site is,”  
The man shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t see a way out of answering that question, but at the same time he wasn’t willing to give up information so easily. “Look lady,” he said, “The shipment was set to arrive at a very precise time,”  
“Well then, I’m sorry to have disrupted your schedule,” Loke said cynically.  
The man leaned forward, a hint of exasperation now showing. “It was timed accordingly. That container we were transporting has an egg in it, one that we were told to deliver before it hatched, and we already got a delayed schedule thanks to an asteroid belt,”  
Loke’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of egg were you transporting?”  
The man shrugged. “I don’t know. We were just told to take it to the buyer,”  
Loke abruptly stood up. There was more she wanted to ask this man and his cohorts, but first she needed to send orders to have the container scanned. An egg in and of itself was innocent enough, but they needed to find out exactly they had brought on board.


	2. Chapter 2

T6-Q5 beeped in anticipation as Lieutenant Rike Spree switched the scanner on. “Don’t get your hopes up,” he warned the astromech droid. “These scanners don’t typically work on this kind of material,” TT6-Q5 made a dejected-sounding tone. “But hey, worth a shot, right?” Spree said. “Stranger things have happened in this galaxy,”  
Despite his best efforts, Spree’s theory was correct-the rays from the scanner were unable to penetrate the container, which he informed both Master Sanna and Commander Jacen Inpost of via his comm link. After a few minutes of deliberation it was decided that they needed to open the box to find out what they were dealing with. If it was something other than a life form-a bomb, for instance- everyone aboard could already be at risk.  
“We’ll send Bostic down to assist,” Loke said. “If this is some sort of weapon from arms trafficking, he’ll know how to handle it,”  
Once Bostic had arrived the two geared up in their PPE. In this line of work, one had to be ready for anything. Bypassing the inscription that kept the container locked, the container let out a hiss as the lid opened.  
No sooner had the cover detached when something sprang out.  
Instinctively jumping out of the way, a creature with far too many legs (“Or was that tentacles?” Spree thought) soared past the two men, scurried through and air duct, and disappeared from sight.  
“Spree? Bostic?” Inpost’s voice cut through the comm link. “Is everything okay over there?”  
“Something shot out of the container and escaped into the air duct,” Bostic said.  
“What was it?”  
“I don’t know, about as big as my head and a peachy-yellow color. I think it had eight or ten legs and a long tail,”  
“I’ll send an alert,” Loke said. “Find the creature and put it back where it came from, and fast!”


	3. Chapter 3

The hum from the training saber cut through the air as Lieutenant Zak Jorys maneuvered the blade. She may not have been a Jedi, but learning how to wield it gave Jorys a sense of pride. As a member of Dai Bendu, she’d heard terms like “lightsaber” and “Jedi” her entire life, but she never thought she’d ever practice with such a weapon, let alone have a Jedi as both a mentor and a friend.  
Powering the blade off, Jorys retrieved the water she’d set aside. Normally she’d be practicing with Master Sanna at this hour, but the successful capture of the smugglers had taken Loke to the interrogation rooms for the afternoon.  
Jorys was still resting when she heard shouting out in the corridor. Setting down her water bottle and grabbing the weapon she was more familiar with-her vibroblade- Jorys cautiously opened the door and peered into the hallway.  
Whatever she had anticipated, it wasn’t an eight-legged creature wrapped around the face of one of Bostic’s soldiers.  
“Get it off of him!” one of the other soldiers shouted at the other as two men tugged at the creature with no avail. Jorys rushed forward to assist, but before she could reach them the creature recoiled it’s legs, dropped to the floor, and scurried out of sight.  
“Are you okay?” One of the soldiers ask the victim. Aside from likely sustaining bruises from where the creature gripped the sides of his head, the man appeared okay.  
“What happened?” Jorys asked frantically. “And what was that thing?”  
“I’m not sure,” one of the soldiers responded. “The three of us were heading to the mess hall when all of a sudden this…thing…leapt from the wall onto his face,”  
Jorys took another look at the person who’d been attacked, the poor man still gasping for air. The only explanation she could come up with was that the creature felt threatened by their sudden presence and attacked the person closest to it. Fortunately it had let go, but if it hadn’t…well, it may very well could have suffocated the solider.  
“Take him to the infirmary,” Jorys said. “I’ll contact Master Sanna and let her know what happened,”


	4. Chapter 4

“What do you mean it ‘suddenly died’?” Inpost asked.  
“The creature was found unmoving and unresponsive in the hallway,” Spree said. “We took a scan and all of it’s vitals have shut down,”  
“So that thing hatched from an egg, overpowered a Republic soldier, then suddenly just curled up and died?”  
“Maybe it tried 2P-Y0’s pre-takho Imperial cooking,” Jorys joked in an attempt to keep the conversation light. She was still a bit shaken from seeing the creature attack the solider earlier, but at least nobody was seriously injured.  
Loke inspected the creature splayed out of the table. It was unlike anything she had seen before. “The soldier who was attacked, how is he doing?”  
“He’s fine,” Spree replied. “Expected to be back on duty tomorrow,”  
“Did the smugglers know they were transporting a feral creature?” Jorys asked.  
“They were aware they were transporting an egg, and that the delivery was time-sensitive,” Loke replied.  
“Who do you think they were sending this to?”  
“A wild creature like that?” Inpost asked. “My guess it was going to the Imperials. Maybe it was part of some militarization effort,”  
“Or someone deeply involved with the black market,” Spree suggested.  
“No matter where it was being sent,” Loke said, “This thing was clearly obtained in the Unknown Regions. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before,” Turning to Inpost, Loke asked “Did you scan it with the holorecorder?”  
“I did,”  
“Good. I’ll see if I can pull any information on this creature after we’ve brought the smugglers back to face trial,”  
For what seemed like the millionth time that day, Loke’s comm went off again. “Master Sanna speaking,”  
“You have to come down to the infirmary NOW!” Bostic’s voice was frantic, bordering on hysterics. “It’s the solider that was attacked. Something…something ripped out of his chest and escaped!”  
Loke’s eyes narrowed. “I’m on my way. Was it another one of those things?”  
“That’s the crazy part,” Bostic said. “It looked completely different, with an elongated head, two forearms, and a tail. And a full set of teeth,”  
Letting out a string of curse words that would have horrified the Jedi Council, Loke made her way to the infirmary with the three crewmates in tow. She didn’t blame them for following-something deadly that they only had a vague description of was loose. If they banded together and kept their weapons at the ready, they had a better chance at killing this thing before it hurt anyone else.


	5. Chapter 5

Jorys could handle a variety of unsettling things, but one glance at the soldier and she excused herself from the room.  
If Jorys had any reservations about killing the creature, they were long gone. Dai Bendu may have a commitment to peace and a respect for life, but this…this was a wild creature, something that could not be reasoned with and would kill anything in it’s way. Whatever it was, it had to be put down.  
A sudden crackling of static made Jorys jump, only to realize it was an emergency broadcast being sent to all personnel aboard Nocturne. Loke’s message was short but to the point: a dangerous creature was loose, and everyone should arm themselves and remain vigilant.  
Jorys tightened her grip on the vibroblade’s hilt. While this was the weapon she was most familiar with, she’d feel safer if she had her blaster on hand as well, allowing her to attack from afar. Hoping she wouldn’t run into the creature while she only had one weapon on hand, Jorys rushed to her quarters to retrieve the weapon.  
M3D-4D was abuzz when Jorys entered her room. “I know, I know,” she replied as she holstered her blaster. “I wish I could shelter here, but…something was accidently set loose aboard Nocturne, something bad. So those of us who are capable of fighting need to kill this thing before it can pick us off one by one,”  
Once she was armed, Jorys knelt down so she was almost eye-level with the droid. “You need to stay back so I know you’re safe. When this is all said and done I’ll set you up for a nice oil bath. And if I don’t make it back, I…” Jorys voice trailed off as her mind began to play out the worst-case scenarios. Shaking her head, Jorys said “Never mind that. Almost everyone aboard this ship has faced far worse than this, and I don’t want either of us to worry,” Standing up to make her departure, Jorys patted M3D-4D’s head. “Just hang back here and think about that oil bath, ok?”  
As Jorys left her quarters and locked the door behind her, she hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.


	6. Chapter 6

“This was supposed to be a simple mission,” the smuggler who’d been questioned by Loke thought wryly. The payment would have been a decent addition in his bank account if they’d successfully delivered the egg to the Imperials-not that he’d told that to the Jedi, of course. Then again, once whatever was in the egg had hatched and gotten loose, the crew decided that leaving the three smugglers in a temporary holding cell was more important than inundating them with questions.  
The smuggler looked over at his other two companions. The three were shackled in binders while a single solider guarded them, the room being watched by the mechanical eye of a holorecorder. The smugglers dared not speak about their failed job, even though the Imperials had pretty much left them in the dark about what exactly they were transporting. Even without the guard and holorecorder, there wasn’t much to say. Right now they were just hoping to get off the Republic ship alive.  
The lights in the small room flickered ominously. The smuggler looked to see if their guard was alarmed. Perhaps temporary shortages were a common occurrence? He felt his stomach sink as the solider appeared equally confused as to why the fluorescents temporarily failed.  
A few seconds later a faint thudding could be heard in the distance. “Maybe there’s a technician making repairs,” the smuggler thought. But as the overhead noise increased in volume, the smuggler knew that wasn’t the case.  
There was an ear-splitting crack as the drywall ceiling gave way and a large, dark humanoid crashed to the floor.  
The smuggler drew as far back into the cell as he could. Whatever they had been transporting was now larger than a human and ten times more horrifying than anything he’d ever seen before. It wasn’t until that moment the smuggler decided what the Imperials promised to pay was not worth the price.  
The alien swung it’s head from one side to the other, taking in it’s surroundings. But before it could do anything else the solider opened fire on the creature. Absorbing a couple bolts, the alien shrieked in anger and leapt back into the upper level it came from.  
“Watch out for the blood!” one of the other smugglers shouted. Sure enough, a green substance had oozed out of the creature’s wounds and was eating away at anything it touched, as if it were acid.  
Swearing loudly, the soldier repositioned himself under the gaping hole in the ceiling and pointed his blaster at the hole above. One moment there was nothing but darkness; the next, the creature reappeared and flung itself ] on top of the solider. The man shouted under the weight that pinned him, trying to locate the blaster that he’d dropped when suddenly the alien brought it’s face against his. There was a moment of silence as the man looked upwards in horror at the animalistic alien, and vice versa. The soldier’s face was contorted in pure terror while the alien’s was unreadable. Even then, the alien seemed to be trying to communicate a single chilling phrase: “You’ve lost,”  
Then, without warning, an appendage shot out of the alien’s open mouth and punctured the soldier’s head.


	7. Chapter 7

“The holding cell is a bloodbath,” Inpost reported. “Bostic’s soldier and all three smugglers are dead,”  
Loke flexed her fingers in frustration. They still had a few hours before they could dock on a habitable, Republic-friendly planet. “Do we know the creature’s location?”  
“We don’t have any specific coordinates,” Spree said, “But based on the holorecording the creature appears to be bleeding acidic-like blood from where the solider wounded it,”  
Loke nodded. “So if we follow the blood and the burn markings, we find the alien,”  
“If this alien has corrosive blood, I suggest we don’t try to take this thing down with melee weapons,” Jorys suggested. “It would probably be best to attack it with a blaster from a distance for our own safety,”  
“I agree,” Loke said. “I don’t want anyone getting closer to this thing than necessary,”  
“So,” Inpost asked, “We all understand the plan?” Everyone nodded. “Good. Let’s draw this thing to the hanger, disable the magnetic field, and suck it out into space,”  
*  
“The hanger hasn’t been this empty since the Republic acquired this ship,” Jorys thought. It was eerie to imagine that if all went as planned, the vacuum of space would suck anything out, save for Loke and Ibri’s fighters which had been supplied with a magnetic field of their own to repulse the flow around the vessels.  
Of course, exposing themselves in an open hallways to draw the creature out wasn’t an easy feat either. Jorys tightened the grip of her blaster as she awaited the new creature she’d only caught glimpses of on a hologram. She’d signed up to fight the Empire, disrupt illicit trades, so-called “normal” things like that; not to fight something that walked right out of a nightmare. None of them had.  
However Jorys had imagined the final confrontation to start, it all melted away when the creature rounded the corner, enticed by a slab of leftover bantha meat they retrieved from the kitchen and laid in the open corridor. It wasn’t a long stretch to assume the creature was a carnivore.  
As the alien buried it’s snout into the raw meat, Loke gave the hand signal: Now!  
The group of fighters converged on the creature, blasters firing yet allowing themselves a wide enough berth to both avoid the blood and take cover if need be. Snarling in anger, the creature leapt onto the metal ceiling and crawled across as if gravity did not exist.  
“It’s heading towards the hanger,” Loke shouted over the blaster fire to anyone who did not have a visual. “Keep it going in that direction!”  
The creature zig-zagged back and forth as it scaled the walls and ceiling, making it almost impossible to hit. The few blasts that were able to graze the alien didn’t seem to faze it, though droplets of blood ate away at the floor below.  
“If we get out of this alive,” Jorys thought as she continued to shoot while side-stepping the sizzling metal, “This section of Nocturne will need a serious interior renovation,”  
*  
The alien was scrambling in the direction of the hanger, but not fast enough. With every shot fired from a blaster, Loke could feel the creature’s anger grow stronger and stronger. She knew it would eventually turn from flight to fight.  
Sure enough, after about fifteen seconds of defense, the alien had had enough.  
Turning on it’s heel, the creature tore it’s claws into the nearest being, which happened to be another solider. Before anyone could shoot the creature it leapt off the man, leaving him writhing on the ground and dead in less than a minute. Reorienting itself now that another attacker was down, the alien made it’s way towards the next closest person: Master Sanna.  
As the Jedi’s gaze locked onto the alien, Loke found herself submitting wholly to the Force, placing her trust in it’s power above her own. Which, in the end, was why she ended up holstering her blaster and igniting her two lightsabers.  
The alien, now sensing not only a new threat but the heat of the blades, adjusted it’s direction so it would not land directly on Loke but to her right, but not before the Jedi was able to sever one of the creature’s clawed hands from it’s body. From the corner of her eye she noticed Inpost and Jorys wince as they waited for the acidic blood to disintegrate her flesh upon impact, yet it merely struck what looked like an invisible shield and smoldered it’s way to the floor.  
“Trust in the Force,” Loke thought back to her days as a Padawan. “Let it protect you, being a shield for both mind and body,”  
The extension of the Force that propelled the blood away from Loke only stretched a few inches from her body, but it was enough to keep her safe. Before the creature could pass by she extended her arms with both lightsabers ignited, blocking off the hallway behind her so the alien had nowhere to go but towards the airlock that led to the hanger.  
The alien leapt onto the ceiling to try and make a pass from above, but Loke was faster. “You won’t go anywhere but back,” she said. The creature snarled at her defense tactic, but Loke responded by walking forward, the tips of the blades searing marks wherever they touched metal. When the Jedi had the alien where they needed it, she yelled “NOW!”  
From an adjacent control room Jorys pressed a button that sealed the alien in an airlock. After an audible thud and click sounded of the airlock being closed and secured, Jorys pressed another button to open the magnetic field of the hanger.  
The vacuum of space did all the rest.


	8. Epilogue

The Nocturne’s mission into the Unknown Regions was hailed by some a success and others a failure. The crew had stopped an illicit trade deal and successfully removed the dangerous cargo; on the other hand, the death of the smugglers made it almost impossible to discover who had wanted such a dangerous creature in the first place, not to mention the deaths of three of Bostic’s soldiers.  
Loke showed the hologram of the alien’s attack to the other Jedi on the council, but none were able to identify what the creature was. This lack of knowledge perturbed Loke greatly. While she understood it was improbable she’d ever come into contact with such a creature again, she wanted to know more about it in the event anyone from this galaxy encountered it in the future.  
Determined, Loke made it a point to search the Jedi Archives before Nocturne set out on it’s next mission. Still, with the millions of alien species recorded in the galaxy, how would she go about searching for an unknown one? Alien with long head? Alien with a mouth in a mouth? Alien with acid blood? She tried these phrases anyway, but none of the searches produced results.  
After two days of pouring through records in both digital and hard copy, Loke finally found something in an old text she was confident matched the creature. The description was vague and the page contained no sketches, but there was mention of a predatory oviparous alien that laid eggs which resulted in a creature that latchs onto a host, wherein young would burst forth from the host hours later.  
“Species,” Loke read aloud, “Xenomorph,” An involuntary shudder ran down the Jedi’s spine. Even saying the word felt wrong.  
Picking up her datapad, Loke logged into the Jedi Temple’s digital archives to create a new entry. Wherever these xenomorphs came from, future generations needed to be aware of these deadly creatures before they ventured too far into the unmapped stars.


End file.
